The Third Antichrist (61 page)

Antanasia listened to the gunfire at the camp. It was far worse than she had anticipated. She knew nothing whatsoever about firearms, but she thought she could make out the lighter pop of small arms fire, followed by the heavier, hammering sound of Abi’s AK-47.

So Abi had come up against some opposition? Compared to the snap of the pistol shots, the AK-47 sounded like something conjured up in hell. The sound a tank makes when compared to a two-horsepower Citroen. She felt desperately sorry for whoever was on the receiving end of such a barrage.

Antanasia laid her letter down beside Abi’s. It was a pointless act because she sensed that he wouldn’t be coming back. But maybe someone would read it and understand.

She stepped out of the caravan.

The evening was soft for the time of the year. But the river would be bitterly cold.

She glanced towards the camp. Gunfire flashes reflected off the low clouds like lightning.

Antanasia walked to the top of the slope leading down towards the river. She could just make out the dark of the water against the lighter smudge of the bank. The river was twenty feet across. She could tell by the suck and swell of the rip that it was deep. Still charged with melted snow from the mountains.

She lay down on the slope, her arms held across her chest. She could feel her mind emptying itself of all that had gone before. She felt an unutterable sense of peace.

She allowed herself to roll down the slope, counting on the speed she picked up to launch her far out into the main part of the stream. But at the last moment her direction skewed, and she found herself rolling to one side and up a small bank. She stood up, a half-smile on her face.

Slowly, painstakingly, she walked back up the slope. This time she lay herself down at the far edge to allow for the slant of the incline and the shape of her body.

She took a deep breath and let herself go.

She rolled down, again at an angle. But on this occasion she had judged it right. Her body struck the water at running speed and she was sucked under.

She closed her eyes and welcomed the numbness.

99

Sabir had broken away from his companions early on in the firefight. He had seen Abi take the buckshot in his legs – had seen him drop to his knees and then lurch forward again. He thought he’d hit him twice with shots from his pistol, but one round had clearly been taken by the Kevlar vest, and the other? Well, who knew where it had ended up? But it hadn’t incapacitated the bastard, that much was for sure.

Sabir decided to concentrate on his search for the Mercedes, because hunting a camouflaged man in the dark was an utter waste of time. Amoy had described the vehicle to him in rigorous detail. The deal was that Amoy and his family could take it, come what may. The thing was probably stolen anyway, so what harm was there in a bit of plunder? Sabir had also guaranteed a lump sum to any man’s family from the camp who was killed or injured during the course of the firefight. He had a suspicion, given Abi’s accuracy with that burp-gun of his, that he might have to declare bankruptcy and sell his house in Stockbridge come sunup.

But the Mercedes, and the woman inside it, was the key. The others could go off in hot pursuit of the maniac, but Sabir sensed that Abi would eventually come back to the woman and to the vehicle that, between them, would as good as guarantee his escape.

Sabir had lost sight of Calque early on in the firefight. The ex-policeman had fastened on to one of the pistols and seemed determined to have it out personally with Abi, whom he still blamed for setting him up for torture in Mexico, and whose brother he held responsible for the murder of his assistant, Paul Macron, the previous year. Sabir had tried to dissuade Calque from participating all through the initial negotiations they’d had with Amoy.

‘Why don’t you hand your weapon over to a younger man? Alexi, say?’

But Calque had given him a withering look and refused to contemplate not being involved.

Sabir now found himself fretting about his friend. He’d been unfair to Calque over the past few months. Cutting him out of the loop in so many ways. He regretted that now. Calque was the only real friend he had left. Alexi was all very well, but the man was an anarchist and a flibbertigibbet – a delight in so many ways, but impossible to count on. And Radu was wound up in his family and his culture and took things far too seriously. But Calque? Calque was his. In fact Calque was pretty much all he had.

Sabir came upon the river on his left-hand side. He flicked on his torch for a split second to confirm that he was walking along a dirt track, then flicked it off again. Pointless turning himself into more of a target than he already was. When his eyes had readjusted themselves to the darkness he focused all his attention on the paler line of the path against the darker line of the sedge, working also to keep the susurration of the river always on his offside. It was then that he heard the splash.

Sabir hesitated for a moment, and then struck down the bank. Could Abi have circled round, got on the far side of the river, and be crossing back? Maybe the bastard had seen the flash of his torch? But then he would have fired in his direction. Whatever burp gun he was carrying had clearly been set to full automatic, given the unholy racket it made when fired. Close up, the sound was enough to loosen your sphincter and almost cause you to piss yourself.

Sabir waded through the reeds at the side of the river bank. Something white swelled out of the water in front of him and slid underneath again.

Without thinking, Sabir dived in. Whether he was remembering back to last summer, and the time Achor Bale had tossed Yola into the river like a sack of rotting potatoes, or whether his thoughts had returned to his mother, and the distorted shape of her body beneath the overflowing bathwater in which she had chosen to slit her wrists, he knew not. He only knew that the white shape was human. That the person in the river needed him. Perhaps he was someone from the camp? Someone injured by gunfire, who had wandered away from the main battleground, lost themselves, and fallen in?

Sabir rose high on the river swell and forced himself under, his arms outstretched. His pistol had long gone, and when he felt the numbing cold of the water he knew that he would not last long either. He could feel his heart hesitate, then redouble its pounding after the initial shock of his dive.

His hands grasped material. He realized that he was travelling at the same rate as the person he was holding.

Sabir kicked wildly for the side of the bank nearest the track. He was holding the person in his arms now, tight against his chest.

He snatched at a handful of reeds with his one free hand, and almost lost his grip when the body, encircled by his arm, was brought up short against the current.

He swallowed half a pint of river water as he fought against the current to win the body. Finally, knowing that he was losing purchase, he grabbed the person by the scruff of their shirt and dragged them behind him as he eased himself out, arse first, like a reversing spider.

Once on dry land, he threw the person face downwards onto the bank. He now realized, for the very first time, that he was dealing with a woman. He checked the woman’s airway with his finger, and then pressed down onto her back with both hands. After three full-strength compressions, she brought up a lungful of water and began to cough.

Sabir was seizing up fast. The woman, he knew, would be in a far worse state. If he waited even a few minutes more, he would be as good as inanimate. Of no use to anybody.

He picked the woman up, threw her across his shoulders, and began to run. He reached the track and continued upstream in the direction he had been going when he first heard the splash.

The breath was coming out of him in groans. He stopped for a second, redistributed the woman’s weight around his neck, and resumed running.

Ahead of him he saw something pale against the night sky. He slowed down and squinted. It was the silver Mercedes.

Sabir grunted and stumbled towards it. He felt for the door with one hand and threw it open. He eased the woman inside.

He switched on the lights and got his first real look at her. Her face was deathly pale, her hair plastered to her brow. She seemed familiar to him in some way that he couldn’t define.

He glanced up. A shower. There was a shower stall. Hot water maybe.

He stripped off the woman’s wet clothes, followed by his own. He would be of no earthly use to her if he cramped up. Already his hands were turning into claws with the cold.

He lifted her against his chest and carried her bodily towards the shower.

‘Please God let it be hot,’ he mumbled to himself.

He switched on the faucet and waited. Steam oozed out of the shower bracket.

Sabir tested the water and backed the woman in ahead of him, supporting her entire bodyweight in his arms, her head across his shoulder. The feel of the hot water on his head and back transformed everything. Soon he was shaking uncontrollably – but a sizable part of that was laughter. They would be all right. They would both be all right.

It was then that he felt the striations on the woman’s back. He turned her round. Her back, buttocks and upper legs were a mass of partially healed wounds. This woman had been beaten within the past few weeks – and beaten badly. Sabir froze for a moment, his arms stretched out in front of him, bearing the entirety of the woman’s weight.

Sabir stood her under the shower until the hot water gave out. Then he rubbed her down with towels he found in the next-door cupboard. When they were both dry he eased her towards the double bed, threw back the duvet, and got in with her. She was shaking again.

He pulled her towards him and covered them both with as many blankets as he could reach.

She was still shivering, but she was coming to. He could feel her coming alive in his arms.

Crazily, uncomprehendingly, he could feel himself hardening against her.

The woman turned towards him, her eyes wide open.

It was the woman from the Bronzino painting. The same mouth. The same eyes. The same auburn hair.

Antanasia regarded Sabir quizzically, as if becoming aware of his presence for the very first time. To Sabir, her eyes were wells in which a man could drown himself. Antanasia put one hand down below the sheets and held him, surprised at her own temerity.

Sabir bent forwards and kissed her. There was no sense to it. No logic. Only instinct. He was lost in her. Entirely lost.

Antanasia responded to Sabir’s kiss in a way that she had never responded to any man before him. It was a total giving of herself. A total surrender. No man – any man – could possibly misconstrue it.

Sabir held her as if she were a part of him. He breathed her in. Every part of their bodies touched, as if they were one being, locked together.

When Sabir entered her Antanasia cried out. Her eyes were fixed on his. They seemed to be looking directly into his soul.

Antanasia watched him arching over her. She held him gently by the small of his back, guiding him, steadying him. For the very first time in her life she was accepting a man voluntarily – allowing him to make love to her with total release. Total impunity. Not holding anything back.

As Sabir increased the rhythm of his movements, Antanasia felt all the evils of the world leach from her. She felt revived – revivified – as if, only now, could she honour the true meaning of her name, which suggested ‘one who was reborn’. An ‘immortal’. Antanasia felt immortal in this man’s arms.

When Sabir climaxed inside her Antanasia felt seven successive waves of ecstasy suffuse her, each one longer and deeper than the last. She held him inside her, pushing against him, moaning, her eyes wide with shock and longing. During the final luxuriant wave, Antanasia held Sabir close to her breast, as one would hold a child.

Finally, she closed her eyes. What had happened? How had she come to this from the river? Who was this man she had taken inside her with such overwhelming determination? With such overpowering love?

The door to the Mercedes burst open and Abi stood in the entranceway. He was leaching blood, his eyes hooded, his pupils thin as pinpricks thanks to the three injections of morphine he had dosed himself with on the journey home.

He was hallucinating. Clearly, he was hallucinating. Because all he could see was Sabir and Antanasia, together in bed.